Gloria Sutton at Art Journal

Gloria Sutton, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History in the College of Arts, Media and Design, has been named the new web editor for Art Journal, the leading peer-reviewed forum for scholarship and visual exploration in the arts. Founded in 1941, the College Art Association, which publishes Art Journal created the new position of web editor this spring, selected Professor Sutton as the journal’s first web editor. She will be responsible for the journal’s web presence and commissioning art projects, extending not only the journal’s audience, but also its context as dynamic platform for contemporary, visual culture.

Professor Sutton, who teaches courses on contemporary art history and new media theory, is especially excited about the opportunities her new position will provide to her students. She wants to invite students to partner with her and take advantage of the opportunities of her new role for Art Journal in rethinking the traditionally print material as web content.

“I want to ask— how can we think of interactive media beyond just clicking on PDFs on a website? How can we present scholarly material in a way that allows collaborative work with students in classes?” Professor Sutton said. “I want to work with students who are interested in these kinds of problems,” she said.

Professor Sutton is planning to use her role as editor to as a platform to invite others to think about what scholarship means in terms of teaching. “I want to think about this website as a design problem— how can we get the scholarly ideas and academic research across on this digital platform in a way that’s interactive?” she said.

On her new role, she continued, “It’s not just a recognition of my interdisciplinary research, but this new role reflects what we do in Department of Art + Design at Northeastern. Students are actively involved in trying to solve design problems and thinking about visual culture, how images have been mediated and circulated in the past and how they operate in the current moment,” she said.

Professor Sutton said she wants to encourage students who are looking for co-op or who have work-study to get involved. “It would be great for students. They could gain editorial experience and be hands-on with content management, as well as help make visual culture relevant for our audience,” she said.